Sales-tax Cut Is Small Consolation For Many

New Sales Tax Finds Few Friends

Peter Das of Suffield said he doesn't know how he's going to come up with the $3,000 to $4,000 a year he figures the new state income tax is going to cost him.

So when he stopped at Village Pizza and Grinders in Wethersfield Tuesday, he wasn't consoled when the 2-percentage-point drop in the sales tax saved him 5 cents on a meatball sandwich.

"The sales-tax reduction is a joke," Das said.

Regardless of whether they supported a state income tax, consumers and merchants Tuesday seemed relatively unimpressed with the savings the sales-tax reduction would mean for most people.

And many were angry that the sales tax -- though lowered from 8 percent to 6 percent -- now is expanded to labor on car repairs, home improvements, clothing between $50 and $75 and dozens of other items.

At Bowl-O-Rama in Newington, co-owner Fred Callahan III is watching the Guided Missiles and other leagues to determine whether the new sales tax on bowling will damage his business.

He said six bowlers already have canceled their league memberships because of the income tax and the expansion of the sales tax to bowling.

But members of the Missile's Mars, Comet and Venus teams, who were bowling Tuesday, said they have no intention of quitting.

"It just goes with the territory," said Comet team member and income-tax supporter Carole J. Glaser of Newington, who will pay $11.90 a year in sales tax on her league play.

Bowling is not the only newly taxed item provided by Bowl-O-Rama. It also has a pool table, lockers and nearly 40 pinball and video game machines, all of which were subject to the sales tax for the first time Tuesday.

Callahan said he cannot adapt the coin slots on the pool table and game machines to take anything except quarters. So there is no way he can charge the sales tax -- 1.5 cents to 12 cents a game -- unless he increases the price by 25 cents.

"I'll have to eat that," he said.

Erroll S. Lilburn of Hartford was not happy with the $6.42 he

saved on the color television and two compact discs he bought at Lechmere in Newington -- all presents for his daughter's 21st birthday Sunday. This week, when employers begin withholding the income tax from paychecks, Lilburn, like many workers, will find out how much tax he will pay. He knows it will be far more than the amount he will save on the sales tax.

"I'm losing it when I go to work this afternoon," said Lilburn, who works the evening shift at Holo-Krome Co. in West Hartford.

One of his customers told him she would have come in a day earlier had she realized the new tax would go into effect Tuesday on the labor portion of the repair bill. For the brake job and oil change, she wound up paying $18.93 in sales tax, $5.21 more than she would have paid Monday, when the tax applied only to parts.

Another customer, whose $196 repair bill was mostly for labor, paid $11.78 in tax, $7.97 more than he would have paid had his car been repaired Monday.

Rossitto said he thinks his customers wouldn't mind the expanded sales tax if they didn't have to pay the income tax.

On Rossitto's counter were petitions calling for repeal of the income tax. He had collected about 136 signatures over the past week.

At Gentlemen's Wear-House in Newington, manager Andy J. Barefield and salesman Bob Paskowitz predicted that the changes in the sales tax will help their business.

Although customers won't like the expansion of the sales tax to clothing between $50 and $75, they said, most suits and jackets already were being taxed because they cost at least $100. Taking into account the drop in the sales tax, they said, most customers will come out ahead.

And as the income tax reduces earnings, Barefield said, people will be more likely to shop at his store and others that offer discount pricing.

"The people who used to shop at Brooks Brothers now are shopping here," he said.

Frank Gozzo of Newington said he supported the income tax to solve the state's budget deficit. But he thinks lawmakers should have added a provision repealing the tax after three years.

"For a couple of years I was willing to buckle under and eat hot dogs and beans. But I don't want to pay an income tax forever," he said.

Pointing to the 8 cents he saved on a $3.99 apple corer he bought at Lechmere, he said the cut in the sales tax isn't going to help him recover the $2,000 in income tax he estimates he will pay annually.